Burdens to Bear
by Quist
Summary: The day after Zuko is burned, Iroh receives a young visitor. Manipulative!Iroh. Dark themes.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender.

 **Author's Notes:** A brief imagining of the reasons behind the Agni Kai that left Zuko scarred and banished. More notes at the end.

* * *

"You knew this would happen."

For a fleeting second as Iroh turns around, he thinks that he sees his sister-in-law standing there at the doorway, returned to take vengeance for her son. But then the person in the doorway moves forward, the trick of the candlelight vanishes, and she is no more than a girl, her bone-white face pale and strained.

Ozai likes his women to look like Ursa, with her distaste for expensive clothing and useless ornaments. None of his brother's concubines wear the fine jewels and gold-lined dresses Iroh remembers his father's women having. But this woman—this girl, Iroh corrects himself—is still lovely even in her plain garb. If Ozai was not haunted so by Ursa's memory, who knew to what heights she could climb.

At this thought, the familiar ache of betrayal and anger begins to rise in Iroh's gut. This was the girl whose name was on Lu Ten's lips as he died, the girl for whom Iroh had forsaken Ba Sing Se and a loyal army that would have followed him to the ends of the earth. This girl, and the child she carried.

The flames on the tips of the candles hiss sharply as they grow.

But the girl is sitting at Zuko's bedside now, and as she reaches to lightly touch the newly scarring tissue, one shoulder slips free of the robes to reveal skin mottled with bruises. Seeing this, Iroh's anger melts to pity.

He thinks of her father, the arrogant man who had proposed to sacrifice the 441th regiment, and he wonders if the general knows what his daughter does to preserve his position at court. Probably not. The man might be easily led and unfit to lead an army, but he loves his children. He would not have his daughter humiliate herself thus for his sake.

"You knew," the girl repeated. "That was why you told me to suggest that foolish, bloody plan to Father." She laughs, bitterly. "Does the young prince even know that you're using him to destroy his own father?"

"I've waited long enough," Iroh says. Long enough…it feels like a lifetime since he had returned from the siege to search her out. A lifetime since he realized that the last living piece of his son was lost forever because of a woman's weakness his brother's ambition. "You told me once that you loved your father more than a child you had never seen."

"Yes." The heavy makeup on the girl's face make her looked older than she is, but beneath, Iroh still sees like the thin, frail creature who had told him that the child she carried—Lu Ten's child, some part of Iroh's still cries, Lu Ten's child who never got the chance to live before he died—was dead, that Ozai had demanded her presence one day and commanded her to drink some midwife's brew. "And I hold to what I said that day." A ghost of a smile crosses her face as she stands up and goes to walk out of the room. It is nightfall, and Ozai will be expecting her. "That will be my burden to bear, Lord Prince. Just as this child certainly will be yours."

"Indeed," Iroh agrees, and he bows her out.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** I've read many fanfics that try to rehash or justify what happened at the Agni Kai, and decided to make my own version. For those who didn't understand, what is being described is this: The unnamed woman speaking with Iroh was Lu Ten's lover. As Lu Ten was dying, he told Iroh of her existence, and that she was pregnant. Iroh hastened back to the Fire Nation to protect his unborn grandchild (I figured this would make a more interesting reason for abandoning the siege other than "he just gave up"), but Ozai had discovered the pregnancy before Iroh could make it back, and fearing for his throne, forced her to abort the child. Ozai subsequently took Lu Ten's lover for his concubine.

Iroh is heartbroken when he realizes that he left the siege for nothing, but he can't change the status quo. Instead, he waits and plots, and though he didn't engineer the events as Lu Ten's lover accuses him of in this oneshot, he does help nudge things along. Result: angry, banished Zuko, who is now in the perfect place to be turned against his father...or so Iroh thinks. It ends up taking a while to take Ozai's children away from him, but Iroh is patient.

If this makes Iroh seem OOC, remember that canon!Iroh was cunning and at times ruthless, especially when facing off against Azula. Iroh loves family, but he has very clear divisions on who he considers family.


End file.
